


strange happenings

by GrimRevolution



Series: the most haunted house in new york [3]
Category: Black Panther (2018), Doctor Strange (2016), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Blood, Gen, Post-Car Accident, Pre-car accident, Stephen Strange is a Doctor, a damn good doctor, descriptions of first aid, mentions of mind control
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-22
Updated: 2018-06-22
Packaged: 2019-05-26 22:05:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15010418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrimRevolution/pseuds/GrimRevolution
Summary: Five times members of the Avengers ran into Stephen Strange before they knew him as the Sorcerer Supreme.ORHe's always been bossy, but nobody could ever accuse Stephen Strange of being a bad at what he does. Doctor or... otherwise.





	strange happenings

 One:

Steve Rogers

New York was saved. It was _saved_. The news reported that much at least. Injuries in the estimated hundreds. Unknown casualties.

“Doctor Strange—”

“You have approximately five seconds to explain why you’re bothering me before I stab this needle through your arm,” Stephen Strange didn’t look up from the row of stitches he was currently sewing into the back of a man’s head. Something had cleaved flesh from bone and some Good Samaritans had carted the man from the edge of Hell’s Kitchen all the way to the ER of Metropolitan General Hospital. The man’s good luck had kept him alive and let him pass out around the twentieth time Stephen had pushed the needle through skin.

Blood was on the floor, it coated his gloved hands and spotted his dark blue scrubs, but the two hundred-some stitches held.

The intern at Stephen’s side swallowed. “There’s an inbound chopper,” the boy was shaking and took a step back when Stephen turned to look at him, bumping into the platform of surgical equipment but—thankfully—didn’t knock it over. “A woman, has a pole through her—uh—”

“He’s done,” Stephen told one of the nurses passing just outside the door—that was open so people could shout out to each other through the chaos—and she nodded, taking the stitched up man to get him situated in their already filled rooms. Snapping off the blood covered latex, Stephen turned to the intern. “Arrival time?”

“W-wha—”

“For the _chopper_ ,” Stephen snarled. _God_ he didn’t have time for this. “For fuck’s— _give me that_ —” he snatched the bit of paper out of the interns hand, read over the information, and then pushed through the doors of the makeshift operating room he was using.

Nurses were swarming through the ER, extra beds filling hallways and rooms. People in wheelchairs being carted back and forth.

Screaming. Crying. _Wailing_.

The Code Blue alarm went off for the fourth time in a minute and was abruptly silenced.

Another ambulance roared up to the curb.

“Go find the security sergeant,” Stephen snapped at the intern. “Tell him to meet me up at the helipad—LYNN.”

A woman in stained red scrubs looked up from the nursing station, a thunderous scowl on her features. Her brown eyes were dark, black hair pulled back into a bun that was falling out around her face. “What?” She snapped, less out of hostility and more from a lack of time.

“Inbound chopper, who’s free?”

The clipboard she was reading slammed against the desk. “I am,” she said, already stepping out from behind the desk to follow him through the throng of people. “Get the families to the waiting area,” Lynn said to a passing nurse. “Or outside, we don’t have enough room for all of them.”

Together, they pushed to the large elevators in the back of the ER, the noises from the front dulled by distance and heavy doors. Stephen leaned against the wall, tilting his head back and sighing.

“Busy day?”

Stephen looked down at the woman standing across from him. “Ha,” he smirked, “funny, funny.” Crossing his arms over his chest, the doctor watched the floor numbers tick past.

“Thanks for coming in, Stephen,” Lynn rubbed her face with the back of her forearm. “Even though we have you delegated to using those expensive hands of yours to stitch people up.”

“These expensive hands are yours to command, oh great nursing supervisor.”

She swatted at him with a laugh. The sound tapered off as they reached the top floor, the door to the helipad sitting there, locked and with its red, blinking light. Stephen glanced down at his watch-less wrist, hissed out a soft breath, and turned his attention back to the florescent lit hallway.

“Did you tell the officers?” Lynn was looking through the small window out onto the pad.

Stephen could hear the roar of the helicopter. “Yes,” he said, but picked the emergency phone next to the door up anyway.

Nothing but a dial tone.

“Shit,” Stephen looked down at the phone in his hand. “Shit!” He slammed it back down on the receiver and turned towards the stairs.

“Where are you going?!” Lynn called after him.

Stephen turned around with a half hop and motioned down at lanky legs and long torso. “Look at me!” his voice echoed through the hallway. “I can’t kick down that door!”

“Stephen!”

He was already through the stair doors, jumping from landing to landing down the five floors before slamming out into the ER. Skidding into the nurse’s station, he reached for their emergency phone. And he could see through the glass of the empty security office but the phone rang to a dispatch centre outside the hospital so _maybe_ —

Silence.

“Damn, damn, _damn it all_ —”

The ambulance bay doors swung open, another gurney flanked by EMTs pushing through the crowd. There was a man with them, an oxygen tank hoisted easily over one shoulder and wearing what looked like the American Flag but as a tactical suit. There was a round shield on his back, a torn up helmet on his head.

He’d been on the news, fighting those aliens in front of Stark Tower.

“You!” Stephen knocked past a group of people being herded to the waiting room. “Hey!” he pulled up beside the man in stars and stripes.

Captain America. The news had called the guy _Captain America_. Like he was some reborn 1940’s comic book superhero. But there had been Iron Man and the Hulk and a guy who shot lightning out of a _hammer_.

“Can I help—” Captain America said, just a tint of Brooklyn on his voice. His words were cut off with a grunt as Stephen grabbed his arm. “ _Wha_ —”

Pulling on the human equivalent of a ton of bricks, Stephen headed for the stairs. “I saw you kick an alien twenty feet,” he said. Which was true. Very impressive. “And I need you to do the same to a door.”

Captain America, in an instant of both complete understanding and absolute confusion, followed Stephen Strange to the helipad. They both took the stairs two to three at a time, a sense of emergency fuelling their strides.

Slamming through the door at the top floor, Stephen found Lynn pacing by the door, stumbled to a stop, and turned to the man beside him. “That,” he gasped, leaning over, hands on his knees, as his legs shook from the strain. “That one.”

The helicopter had landed without anyone’s help, the crew unloading the patient with quickness that only came from repetition and emergency.

“Got it,” Captain America hoisted his shield off his back and held it out like a battering ram. “Stand back.”

Lynn had to pull Stephen, his legs not at one-hundred percent, towards the wall. Metal met metal and the door crunched outward. A second hit knocked it completely from the frame. The door landed, warped and broken, on the roof and Stephen allowed himself to be tugged out, past the Captain.

The next four hours were a blur of rushing to the nearest operating room, of nurses coming and leaving as quietly as they could, replacing each other in a flow of water until Stephen couldn’t tell who had been there and who hadn’t, and of careful repair of damaged flesh. 

Thick metal had pierced the woman’s jaw, going through the mandible and out the soft, underside of her head.

Three inches higher would have killed her instantly.

Stephen had to leave for the bone reparations—more because they couldn’t be his to do—and stumbled back to the emergency room.  Christine Palmer, who had been dragged off to the OR during the beginning of it all, looked up from her own paperwork.

“Hey,” she said softly as he collapsed in a chair next to her. “Lynn told me—did she—?”

Blue eyes rolled up to look at her, exhausted and half lidded under the bright lights. “Yeah. She’s gonna make it.”

Christine smiled and nudged him with her hip. “Well done, Doctor Strange.”

“Thank you, Doctor Palmer.”

Someone cleared their throat off to the side and Stephen rolled his hair around only to straighten at the sight of Captain America standing there, still covered in dust and what looked like green blood. There was enough dirt along his face that it looked like spattered bruises.

And they could be, Stephen realized. Forcing his way back up to his feet with a harsh grunt, the doctor lifted his hand.

It was still steady even after the past fourteen hours.

“Thank you, uh—”

“Steve,” the gloved hand that encircled Stephen’s long fingers was warm and careful. “Steve Rogers.”

“Stephen Strange,” They shook, once, and let go. “Have you gotten yourself looked at?”

A surprised chuckle left Steve’s throat and he glanced, knowingly, over at Christine who was watching them with narrowed eyes. “Just bumps and bruises, Doctor. There are others who need more help than me at the moment.”

It sounded like he had repeated the words often.

“Why, _Christine_ ,” Stephen turned to the woman next to him. “Have you been bullying the man?”

She huffed and pushed him gently out of her way so she could get to the printer. “You could have some fractured bones, Captain Rogers.”

“Yes ma’am,” Steve said obediently, as if they’d had the same conversation multiple times.

They probably had.

“I’m going to go change into my last pair of scrubs,” Stephen said, carefully not looking down at the red splattered across the ones he was wearing. “And see if I can get someone up here to mop up that room I was using.” Too many patients with not enough proper operating tables had left puddles of blood on the floor. It wasn’t... the _best_. But it had done the job.

Christine waved her hand at him. “EVS is already on it— _and_ they’ve done laundry a fair number of times so none of us will run out of clothes.”

“Bless them,” Stephen said with feeling, earning a snickering laugh from the other doctor. He turned back to Steve Rogers who was watching the two of them with a sad sort of amusement. “Thank you, again, Captain Rogers.”

“Of course, Doctor—”

Another ambulance roared up to the curb.

“Well,” Stephen said as people moved in and out of the way. His scrubs would have to wait until later, it seemed. “Back into that frying pan, Doctor Palmer.”

oOo

Two:

Clint Barton

Two weeks after the attack on New York and aliens having fallen out of the sky, Stephen Strange walked into his office and found a manila envelope sitting in the centre of his desk. It didn’t have an address or any distinguishing features except his name written across the top.

Stephen glanced around at the rest of his office—from the stacks of medical journals to the simple carving of a wooden staff entwined by a single snake. Nothing was out of place. And nothing was missing.

Taking off his coat and placing his laptop bag next to his chair, Stephen sat and picked up the envelope.

It was heavy—the kind of heavy that came from thick paper—and he folded the fastening open and lifted the top. Two items fell out; a file of some sort with a letter clipped to the front and a thin Smartphone. A seal was stamped on the papers—an eagle cut into angles and rectangles, wings spread in flight.

Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division.

“And what,” Stephen asked the paper, taking the letter in hand to read, “do _you_ want?”

A consultation, apparently.

Maybe a procedure.

Look at these brains and find out if something is wrong.

Stephen was kind of hoping to have the MRI’s and CT’s in the file, but most of what was there was just more information about what he could expect, what he would have to do, and a non-disclosure agreement that he signed anyway the moment he decided to practice medicine.

_Contact us on the phone when you’ve decided._

Well. _Well_.

Stephen picked up the phone.

It wasn’t every day he was asked to examine someone that had been mind controlled by aliens.

Two days later found him in a coffee shop a few blocks from Metro-General but not so far from the destruction the aliens had caused. Construction crews were cleaning up the debris and agents from all sorts of agencies piled bits of aliens and their tech into large carts to haul to the real life Area 51—where ever that was.

 “Doctor Strange?”

Stephen looked up from his coffee and papers to the woman standing beside his table. She had dressed to blend in—grey turtleneck, black pants, a pair of sunglasses that sat on her head—but she stood like a soldier.

“Yes?”

She sat down across from him. “Agent Maria Hill, thank you for meeting with me on such short notice.”

“Of course, Agent,” Stephen pushed the papers into a pile, slid them back into their folder, and folded his hands on top of it. Only one was left. The NDA. He handed it over. “While I understand the need for digression about your place of work, I’m afraid that I will need to see the patient’s medical history in order to be sure of my findings.”

Hill leaned back in her seat. “He’s agreed to that.”

“And I cannot share anything with your organization he doesn’t fully consent to.”

The agent inclined her head. “We expected nothing less.”

Stephen finished the last of his coffee. “Very well, shall we go, then?”

He followed Maria Hill to an unmarked black car with government licence plates and tinted windows. Sitting in the back—one leg crossed over the other—he picked up the larger file next to him and flipped it open. X-Rays of a head greeted him and a pack of papers for one man; a Clint Barton.

It wasn’t a long drive, but Hill took him away from the biggest messes and towards the midtown tunnel. 37th was almost untouched by the attack—with people going about their daily lives. Something New Yorkers were used to doing.

Stephen ignored all of it, holding the x-rays to the window one at a time.

Hill stopped at an office building on FDR Drive and Stephen could see the thin, towering wall that was the United Nations headquarters. It looked over the Ed Koch bridge and the skyscrapers that peppered Queens.

“Doctor?”

Stephen turned away from the East River and followed the agent through the front doors of the offices. They didn’t look like much in the lobby—old, aging white paint, an exhausted looking secretary, and some 90’s stock photo posters about ‘courage’ and ‘duty’. To be honest, it looked like the average underpaid agency everyone else would have expected.

The second set of doors hid metallic grey walls, flashing state-of-the-art screens, and people in lab coats scurrying about. Stephen hummed to himself, spinning around on his heel to take in the glass and angles and steel.

“While you’re here,” Hill said, guiding him to an elevator, guiding him inside, “you’ll only have access to the medical rooms and labs. If you have any need for equipment you were not provided with, please contact me with the phone you were given as all personal devices will not work in the building.”

The floors passed quickly—two to four to seven.

“Any questions?”

Stephen frowned as the elevator dinged and watched the doors slide open. “No, Agent Hill, but I will be sure to contact you if I do.”

He was dropped off in a basement with no exterior lighting and nothing but blue tinted fluorescents high on the walls. Everything was grey and cold. Lifeless. The hallway was lined with doors that had small windows at eye height and, at the end, there was a break room-like area.

A single man was inside, leaning against one of the tables, his eyes on the television. Blonde hair had been cropped—not quite a buzz cut but short enough that it could be nothing other than military. He was wearing a pair of grey sweatpants and a simple white t-shirt with the black S.H.I.E.L.D. insignia.

“Agent Barton?”

The man moved with a deliberate slowness, looking over his shoulder with a small smile. “Just Clint, please,” He offered a hand. “Doctor Strange, right?”

“Yes,” Stephen took the offered hand and they shook, once, before motioning the other man onward. “Agent Hill most likely already told you what to expect,” he said, “but just to double check I need your confirmation that you are consenting to a MRI and CAT scan.”

Clint looked up at him, eyes sharp like a hawk’s talons. “Yeah,” he said, “that’s sounds just fine, Doc.”

“Shall we get started, then?”

oOo

Five hours later, Stephen was back in his own, private office. Light tables were scattered around him, one holding the ‘before’ images and another one the ‘after’. He worked through them, pad in hand, pen in the other.

Hours ticked by.

Manhattan grew quiet.

Stephen sat down in his chair and picked up the phone sitting at his desk. “Agent Hill?” He said looking up at the scans. “Your man is clean—there are no after effects seen on the scans.”

 _“Thank you, Doctor Strange. An Agent will be by in the morning with your payment.”_ She hung up the phone with a click.

“Government,” Stephen said and sighed. He looked up at the wall of X-rays and lights before getting back up to his feet, taking them down one by one. They slid easily into their pale folder along with Clint Barton’s medical information and everything from S.H.I.E.L.D. that had been in the first envelope. Making sure it was all even, he pulled open one of his cabinets, turned on the shredder, and slid the entirety of it through the top.

It was a good shredder—meant for x-rays and thicker paper. Stephen watched all the research over the past hour be torn to bits. When it was done, he dumped it in a black trash bag, took it down the hallway, and tossed it down the chute with the phone to where the contents would get burned before morning.

The hallway was empty as he walked back to his office and Stephen Strange stood in the dim, pale, ghastly glow of the lights and the amber streetlamps that just managed to peek through his blinds.

“‘ _And whatsoever I shall see or hear in the course of my profession, I will never divulge_ ’,” Stephen quoted to the small, wooden carving of the Rod of Asclepius that sat next to his medical journals. The snake that twisted around the clunky, miniscule wizard-looking staff looked pleased.

Stephen said the words again, as if to remind himself about what it meant to be entrusted with so many secrets. Then, he grabbed his things, picked up his phone, and left.

The bug underneath the Rod’s stand deactivated.

oOo

Three:

Natasha Romanoff

Hong Kong with its bright lights and busy street market flowed around Natasha like soap bubbles. She could feel that energy—the harsh, popping kinetic energy of something _happening_ and _forming_ —against her skin, but there was no sign of it.  Just people and their lives.

“I’m not seeing anything, Rogers,” she murmured, dodging around a group of laughing schoolgirls.

 _“Keep looking,”_ Steve said over the ear pieces. _“I want to be sure that the readings were wrong before we move on.”_

Natasha turned her eyes back to the street and stands and all the people who walked, chattering, as if there was nothing wrong. “Copy that,” she said.

And maybe there wasn’t anything wrong. Maybe it was a flux in the system, maybe it had picked up something like a massive amount of radio signals or... well. _Anything_. But there was a sparking tingle between her shoulder blades and the sensation of two worlds existing out of focus before finally coming together again.

 _“Whoa, Cap,”_ Sam Wilson’s voice crackled into her ear, hitching and with a low timbre as if he was going to be sick. Natasha felt the same as the world seemed to spin too fast for a second, slow down, and then go again like some Disney World Teacup ride. _“I’m getting some major déjà-vu.”_

 _“Same here,”_ Steve said, not sounding as sick, but there was a tint of nausea to his voice. _“Eyes open—”_

A feeling swept through Hong Kong, like the moment before a mother revealed herself while playing peek-a-boo with her child or the brush of a feather against a cheek. The world went dark for a millisecond—a camera shuttering kind of darkness, as if Natasha had blinked instead of having her eyes wide open—and she felt her breath hitch in her throat. People around her seemed just as frozen as her, the world a shadow except for the single, circular window glowing further up the street.

An eye in the darkness, watching all of them.

For just a moment, in that split second of shadow, she felt death leaning over her shoulder.

Then it was gone.

The people kept moving, the world kept turning, and the window at the end of the street was dim and very much not staring.

“Did you see that?” She said, speaking so her voice couldn’t be heard over the people around her. Pushing through the crowd, Natasha worked her way closer to the building with its singular circular window. “That window—”

 _“Yeah,”_ Sam said, sounding breathless. _“Yeah I saw it—got a reading, too; happened at the same time.”_

Dodging around a cyclist, Natasha was before the building, streets branching off in every direction with the window watching over them all. People passed around her—locals and tourists alike—talking and laughing and eating.

Besides the regular movement and noise of the city, there was nothing.

“Sam?”

 _“I dunno what to tell you,”_ there was a sound of something being smacked—flesh against metal. _“There was a flair for one second and then nothing. Zip. Nada.”_

Natasha rubbed a hand over her mouth and looked over the people and the lit signs. The night was young, the people of Hong Kong settling into the noise and life of their city. She opened her mouth to give the all clear to Steve when a white man walked past her dressed in dark blue robes singed across the hems and torn along the sleeves. A red cloak fell from his shoulders, flapping in a wind that didn’t exist.

He was just as out of place as she was, though Natasha was dressed more like an American tourist and not like she had just come back from a Comic-Con.

The clothing looked old with its wraps and layers, but it matched the red, brown, and black of the Chinese man beside him.

What a pair they made; the long, thin figure, black and grey hair carefully slicked back, walking with one arm crossed carefully over his abdomen, and the shorter man with his broader shoulders and chest, standing as if he had all the time in the world to watch the person beside him become gravity’s plaything.

Natasha froze like a spider on the wall, letting the rest of the crowd pass around her for just a moment to break her vision of the men. She moved, then, walking with her hands in her pockets and getting close enough—

“—get a doctor to look at that,” the Chinese man was saying, his eyes on the dark stain featured on blue fabric. They were heading towards the building with the window, weaving through the people with careful steps.

The tall man swayed, dangerously, to one side and was caught by quick thinking hands. “I _am_ a doctor.”

“Who left a hospital after getting _stabbed_.”

“I got stitches.”

Natasha moved around a second group of people, her head tilted towards the street as her eyes were focused on the two men. The tall man looked up, his eyes dark and caught her gaze in a second. The blue flashed like light reflecting off the surface of the ocean, focusing on her features with striking clarity—and they turned away when the man was tugged up to the doors of the building.

She watched them walk inside and shut the door with a soft click.

 _“Alright, no more spikes of energy,”_ Sam spoke up. _“Your call, Cap.”_

_“Let’s get out of here before someone else decides to check it out. Natasha?”_

Tearing her eyes from the building, Natasha looked back over the people on the street. “Meet you there,” she said.

oOo

Four:

Peter Parker

Stephen saw the teenager after he had walked out of the greasy, cheap hamburger place Wong had decided he wanted to try. Coney island, bright and evacuated from the plane that had crashed on the beach, was just down the street and the kid was heading away from it, limping and holding his arm close to his chest, wearing a torn red and blue sweatshirt with a pair of baggy sweatpants that looked two sizes too big.

Lights from nearby stores illuminated blood on pale, drawn cheeks.

Stephen looked down at the bag of food in his hand, sent a mental apology to Wong, and used an alley to make a portal two blocks ahead of the teenager. Shrugging off his own crimson hoodie, Stephen tied the fabric around his waist and patted the arms when they reached up to tap his stomach. Biting down on his silk gloves, the sorcerer took those off too and shoved them into a pocket of his jeans next to the tarot cards that had snuck out of the Sanctum.

Hoisting his bag of burgers and fries under one arm, Stephen stepped out around the corner so the boy walked nose first into his sternum. Which was a bit of surprise, because the kid felt like he was made of fleshy steel and jumped back a good feet after almost knocking Stephen off his feet, eyes wide and unblinking.

“I’m so sorry!” The kid jumped back forward, hands hovering over Stephen—not touching, but unsure what they should do anyway. “Are you alright? Are you hurt? Oh man, oh man, I’m—”

“Hey, _hey_ ,” Stephen placed the bag of food on a nearby bench and lifted his hands—his scarred, trembling hands—and watched the boy’s gaze immediately snap to them. “No harm done, see? Everything’s alright.”

The teenager flushed, still, his body shaking from thick tension across his neck and shoulders.

“Besides,” frowning, Stephen finally got a good look at the drying blood, the burns in cotton, and the long, knife-like rips through thick fabric. “I think I should be asking you that question.”

“Wha— _oh_ ,” Looking down, the teenager seemed to see his injuries for the first time. “No, no; I’m fine.”

Stephen let one eyebrow rise before he sighed a sigh that was full of the fondness of the indestructibility of youth and the exasperation of having heard that from people who’d sat in front of him with migraines caused by tumours. “I’ve heard that many times while working in a hospital,” he told the boy, “so try again.”

“You, uh, you work in a hospital?”

“Not at the moment, no,” Stephen admitted, and frowned at the way the teenager swayed. “You look like shit,” he said, earning a surprised laugh. “There’s a convenient store a block down—why don’t you let me take a look at your injuries so you can get home?”

The teenager looked around him, eyes still wide and deer-like, hair sticking to the blood and sweat on his skin. He made an ‘uh’ sound and Stephen, with very little to lose, picked up the bag of greasy food and undid the sticker keeping the top closed.

“Here,” Stephen said, holding a paper-wrapped burger, still warm and feeling like perfect teenage-needing calories. “Take this at the _least_.”

Bloodied, scabbed fingers took the food and unwrapped the paper as if afraid Stephen would snatch everything back. Careful hands guided the teenager over to the bench and the bag was offered again. “Eat what you want,” Stephen said and pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. “I need to get a few supplied but I’ll be right back.”

The boy swallowed a massive mouthful of beef, cheese, and bread. “I can’t give you money—”

“You’re, what, fifteen? Sixteen?” Stephen shook his head, “I don’t _need_ you to pay me back, alright? Sit here and eat something before you keel over.” He was about to turn and head up the sidewalk, but paused and looked back at the teenager rummaging around the bag. “And do _not_ move. Understood?”

“Aye, aye sir, Doctor, sir.”

Stephen rolled his eyes but jogged up the sidewalk. The convenient store had seen better days and the cashier looked like she’d had more exciting moments in her life, but he filled up a basket with whatever he could get his hands on—bandages of various styles and sizes, gels, bottles of hydrogen peroxide and rubbing alcohol, and a small box of latex-free gloves to name a few. The total was in the hundreds and, like always, the Sanctum’s wallet had just enough cash to cover it all.

Armed with plastic bags, Stephen headed back to where he’d left the teenager and found him on his second burger, an empty paperboard fry container by his leg.

“Sorry,” the kid grinned sheepishly, “I just—when I started—”

“You can have the whole bag if you want,” Stephen said, sitting down on the bench. His voice was earnest even as he dug through the first of the bags. “I can always get more.”

“I, uh...” the kid tried, trailed off, and then shoved the rest of his burger into his mouth.

Stephen shook his head and pulled out the bottle of rubbing alcohol. “Alright,” he said and tugged at the sleeve of the tattered sweatshirt. “Off with this, i need to look at your arm.”

The boy obeyed with minimal fuss, the food making him compliant even when he hissed, the movement jarring his wounds. Bundled into a ball, the fabric was dropped between them, settling in the empty space of the bench. “So, Doc—will I make it?”

Stephen frowned at the smattering of bruises and the ripped up undershirt, eyes cataloguing the injuries. “Looks so,” he said, eyeing the mass of purple spreading over a thin wrist. It didn’t look broken, but wrists were tricky. “This is going to hurt,” he told the teenager. “And you’ll probably have less cool scars to tell your friends later on in life.”

“I think I can live with that.”

“Good,” Stephen said and nodded to the food. “Keep eating.”

The teenager took a willing bite of the burger. “I’m, uh,” he swallowed what was in his mouth and whatever name he had been about to give over. “You can call me Ned, by the way.”

“Alright, Ned,” Stephen started the process of cleaning the blood off pale skin. “I guess you can call me Karl.”

“Is that a fake name? Cause, uh, you don’t really look like a—” ‘Ned’ hissed when rubbing alcohol came in contact with a long cut up his forearm. He didn’t jerk back only because the iron grip scarred fingers had on his elbow held him still.

Stephen snorted, looking up briefly from his work before his eyes were focused once more on turn flesh. “And you don’t really look like a ‘Ned’,” he said, wincing as the teen jerked again.

Not-Ned focused on the food after that, trying to keep up the tough exterior as Stephen worked his way through cleaning his wounds, lathering on the antimicrobial gel, Neosporin, and bruise cream. Gauze pads were placed over the bigger messes and wrapped with rolled bandages. Skinned fingers were cleaned and carefully bound, one sliding easily into the plastic sleeve that would keep it straight for the time being.

Burns were treated with aloe and covered with thin, mucus-like pads that would keep the blistering small and the skin hydrated. Grains of sand were picked out of ragged knees and wrapped tightly, but carefully. A triangle bandage created a sling and butterfly bandages covered the rough cuts on the teen’s forehead.

“Alright,” Stephen leaned back to look over his handiwork before he stood and dumped the trash into the nearby bin. “Apply the burn pads every couple of hours and don’t be afraid to use the creams when you feel like you need to.” His hands weren’t quite as steady, but they guided smaller fingers into learning how to wrap bandages with one hand and retie the sling if necessary. “If anything starts oozing, go to the ER.”

Opening his mouth, Not-Ned looked as if he was going to argue before he was silenced by sharp blue eyes. “Fine,” he grumbled instead.

Stephen shoved the paper bag of food and the plastic bag of left-over medical supplies into the teenager’s arms. “Do you have a way home?”

Not-Ned flushed.

“Alright, up you get—I’ll buy you a ticket for the train.”

The teenager gathered everything in one arm with the other one still sitting in a sling. “I don’t live that far,” he tried.

“Even if you didn’t, I’m not letting you walk home like that,” Stephen pointed out, already walking up the street. “And you have a Midtown tech shirt on.”

Not-Ned looked down and, sure enough his white shirt had the High School logo printed nice and clear across his chest. “Shit,” he sighed, body sagging.

The teenager stood off to the side, shifting from foot to foot while he let Stephen buy him a train ticket to go uptown. And he begrudgingly took the extra cash that was offered for when he would have to switch tracks.

But when climbing up to the platform, Not-Ned paused and looked back down at the Doctor. “Thank you,” he said, “for the um, food and stuff.”

“You’re welcome,” Stephen nodded his head once, watched the boy get the rest of the way up the stairs, and turned on his heel.

Now he just needed to get more of those burgers before Wong decided he’d waited enough.

oOo

Five:

T’Challa

A day of long United Nations meets drew to a close. There had been steps to build treaties, to focus on laws and customs and all other matters that Wakanda had ignored for so long over the past year, but each step got a little closer, moved a little farther.

Work still needed to be done, but it was finished for that day which meant T’Challa’s conversation could be filled with something other than foreign policies.

Which was probably why Everett Ross took him to a bar.

Or, well, Ross had called it a bar, but it was very much like the high-class upscale place in Seoul where they had met for the second time.

Glass balls with small lights hung from the ceiling—hundreds of them, a foot above everyone’s heads—and managed to light up the black pieces of mica-like stone beneath everyone’s feet with striking green shimmers. The walls were made with a silver-blue material that made the light reflect and dance, leaving everything perfectly illuminated but with enough darkness to give the feeling of privacy.

 Small square tables with soft, rounded backed chairs lined the walls, but Ross guided him past all of them to the centre of the place; a lounge area with billiard, card, and other gambling tables and a stage that could host a band or other type of entertainment.

“Why are we here, Agent Ross?” T’Challa looked away from the people that took up the space. Ambassadors, senators, presidents, and other royalty were about. Most of them he knew from meeting with over trade agreements.

“I thought you could use the time to relax,” the American motioned around them.

T’Challa smiled in a way that was both quiet and amused, his hands carefully clasped behind his back. “Around all the people who would like to talk business?” he said, humour lacing the words together.

Ross rolled his eyes, his wide smile still on his face. “I would have taken you someplace else,” he admitted, “but I don’t think Okoye would have appreciated it.”

Not needing to look back to know that the general was only a few steps behind them, T’Challa sighed because Ross was right; the club was a good safe spot with more security than an American airport.

Okoye was probably smiling in that teasing, pleased way she had.

“Stop it,” T’Challa murmured under his breath and heard her soft laugh through the communication device.

They found a table pressed back into one corner, away from most of the noise and bustle of the people around them. The volume of the club rose and fell; a soundtrack of the soft music that played in the background with lyrics of conversation. Laughter bubbled up from a crowd of Europeans gathered at the bar and, across from them, a Japanese woman spoke softly to the people next to her.

Sitting at a table close to the entrance, a table held a gentleman that T’Challa recognized one of the United States’ ambassadors. He was with a man dressed in a black shirt—sleeves rolled halfway up the forearms—covered in a red vest that had gold along the hem. Lights danced off the pink ring on the Ambassador’s hand. A family heirloom, if he was to be believed.

T’Challa leaned back in his chair and folded his hands in his lap. “So, Agent Ross,” he smiled even as Okoye spun her own seat around to look out over the room. “What should we talk about, besides business?”

The CIA agent looked like a malfunctioning cat for a moment—blinking with his mouth open ever so slightly—and then he gave a sheepish shrug. “Honestly,” Ross said, “I have no idea.”

An easy, simple truth.

And the American just smiled. “I could grab a deck of cards so you could teach me about that game Shuri was talking about.”

Ah, right. The game of memory his sister liked to trounce him at during every possible opportunity. He could see Okoye’s smile and knew she was thinking of the same thing. “We should,” T’Challa agreed and watched Ross get up to see if he could borrow a pack of cards from one of the men running the tables.

“My King,” Okoye said, her voice carefully quiet, but the words were hard.

T’Challa turned his attention to her and, then, beyond to what she was watching.

The ambassador and the man he sat across from. One hand was cupped between two clad in black silk, The Man in Red with a slight frown on his lips, brow furrowed as he turned pale flesh over.

“What is it?”

“That man,” Okoye chose her words carefully, “is a thief.”

The Ambassador stood with a strangled gasp, pushing away from the table and looking down at his hands. “Are you sure?” he said breathlessly, his voice just barely heard over the sound of the other patrons. The Man in Red said something, but nodded, and the American grabbed his jacket and fled.

His pink ring was pulled from a sleeve, held carefully between two silk covered fingers. The Man in Red sighed as he looked at it, eyes dropping in a tiredness that came from years of long work.

Okoye was about to stand from her seat.

“Wait,” T’Challa said and he watched how the man didn’t move from the table, how he set the ring away and turned his attention to watching people. The King of Wakanda stood and, not quite knowing why, walked across the open room to take the ambassador’s abandoned seat. Blue eyes snapped up before he had even made it halfway, but they did nothing but watch.

Nodding towards the ring still sitting on the table, T’Challa’s gaze never left The Man in Red. “Does that ring belong to you?”

The man smiled. “No,” he said.

“Does it belong to the ambassador?”

“No.”

T’Challa leaned back in the chair. “The ambassador said it was a family heirloom.”

Blue eyes flashed with a bright, knowing humour. “Just as I am sure the Roman who stole it from the Egyptian claimed it was an heirloom,” The Man in Red said, “and the Egyptian to the Iranian and the Iranian to the Indian to the Samurai to the Mongolian to the blacksmith in Tibet who crafted it himself from power that wasn’t his to harness.” Silk covered hands picked the ring up and offered it to the King of Wakanda. “Would you like to touch it?”

“It doesn’t sound like something that should be touched.”

The Man in Red grinned like a fox. “Sometimes we see our true selves when we touch great power.” And then he dropped it onto T’Challa’s hand.

The pink gem brightened in one second and was dim in the next, like a lamp during a power outage. Power. The ring was power. Not in blasts of destruction or untendered growth, but something quiet. Something _meaningful_.

Something like hope.  

“Fascinating,” The Man in Red said and the sudden quiet strength of the world was gone, leaving T’Challa to blink at the ring back in the possession of black silk. “The Ring of Compulsion will offer anything you desire,” he said, “and you chose to give rather than receive.”

“And what does that mean?”

Taking his crimson coat off the back of his chair, the Man in Red shrugged it over his shoulders and dropped the ring into one of the pockets.

“It means you will make a great King.” Around them, the air became hundreds of fragmented glass pieces. “I think we’ll see each other again, King T’Challa.” The Man in Red turned to go.

“Wait!” T’Challa stood, his chair pushing back with a screech against the stone. “What do you see when you hold the ring?”

Because it was a curiosity. Because it was a need to know who held that kind of power.

Because the man existed in a way that no one should, looking at home with the air crackling around them and his coat fluttering in a wind that had no reason of being in a space with closed walls and so many bodies.

Shattered air rippled as it was touched, more like ice on the ocean than a broken mirror. “What do I see?” The Man in Red hummed out a sad, amused sound. “Just a doctor, King T’Challa. Nothing more.”

And he was gone. The world straightened and flattened, the air no longer solid.

“Who was that?” Okoye hissed, her eyes moving over the people that moved around them.

“I’m not sure,” T’Challa admitted. “But he was quite...” He paused, searching for the right word before just settling on the easiest. " _Strange._ "

**Author's Note:**

> i fucked with the canon timeline cause this movie wants me to believe stephen had fully functioning hands one year after his accident and i'm calling BULLSHIT
> 
> this isn't beta'd and i'm actually just tired of looking at it.


End file.
